Mixing the Milk and the Meat of Mormon Thought in the Most Un-Kosher Way

I recently read a fascinating and important blog post on a potential source for a crisis of faith for the rising generation and felt inclined to give a response to it. I just now noticed, however, that the post was written in October of 2014, so this will be a bit of a delayed response (I don’t know how the post even registered on my radar — maybe it was on my Facebook feed for some reason). Regardless of this fact, I think the point the author is making is still very relevant and wanted to weigh in on the topic.

The post was by Julie M. Smith, a prolific writer and LDS New Testament scholar. Her blog post was entitled “On the Next Generation’s Faith Crisis” and was posted on the Times and Seasons blog. In her piece, Julie predicts that in the coming years, latter-day saints will find that their faith will be challenged more by secularists than by evangelicals (who have been responsible for much anti-Mormon rhetoric in the past) and that the attacks will not be so focused on Church history (as it has been in the past) but on the reliability of the Bible, especially the New Testament and its testimony of Jesus. Of course, these secularist attacks are not necessarily against Mormons in particular, but against all Bible believers and, essentially, against religion in general.

First of all, let me express that I agree with the essential points of Julie’s concerns here. However, I believe that this is of more immediate concern to those who are being or have been educated about the New Testament in more secular academic settings. For many or most members of the LDS Church, this is not currently and may not ever be the cause of a major faith crisis. I will explain why I feel this way below.

I have been wanting to do this for a long time and have, now, started up my own Mormon-themed blog.

I want to let everyone know that the subtitle of this blog “Mixing the Milk and Meat…in the Most Un-Kosher Way” is meant to be humorous, playing off the blog’s title, and not an indication that this blog will somehow be antagonistic to Mormon thought/doctrine/tradition or even unorthodox in any negative way.

I consider myself to be a socially, politically and religiously conservative and a highly orthodox member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church). I am an active member of the Church and actually consider it my purpose to support and defend the doctrine and teachings of the Church. Again, the title is meant to be humorous — according to my own weird sense of humor.

The title/moniker that I am using, Mormon Milk Dude, is actually a partial, bastardized (excuse my French) transliteration of a nickname that I used when I studied Arabic (If the world can find out these letters, so let it be).

I have chosen not to share my real name as doing so these days can be risky business if you want to share your true thoughts on just about anything. I have always hated anonymity on the Bloggernacle, but I’m beginning to see it as a better way to go. Having said this, I do not plan to be mean, cruel, inflammatory, or otherwise destructive in the comments I make on this blog. I just want to be able to express myself as fully as possible.

I have strong feelings (I’m very opinionated) about many topics, including religion, politics, current affairs, social issues, and much more. I plan to make this a blog that will touch on all of these areas, plus whatever else is on my mind. But the focus will be on things that I feel are of interest to Mormons (or at least to this Mormon). My perspective will be generally geared towards faith-promotion, apologetics, and things that I view as “Signs of the Times.”

I would like to be a participant in the big tent of Mormon blogs which is the Bloggernacle, although many will likely not agree with me or like my perspectives much.

And just FYI — I think I’ve actually developed some kind of allergy to milk. It gives me the hiccups.